GIPC

GIPC senior engineer Hans Reich gives instruction to Cambodian garment workers.

Management courses for garment workers will be introduced in four Cambodian universities next year to bolster one of the country’s key economic sectors, the Garment Industry Productivity Center (GIPC) announced on May 9.

The center, which is funded by USAID, said most of the industry’s 350,000 workers are sewing machine operators earning minimum wage and factories were in need of qualified supervisors to handle management tasks “such as logistics, industrial engineering and human resources.”

“These positions pay well and offer promising career paths, yet few university graduates pursue them because of the garment industry’s reputation as a bastion of unskilled labor,” GIPC said in a statement.

“The shortage is compounded by a lack of garment sector-related courses in the country’s universities,” it added.

The courses will be held at the National University of Management (NUM), the University of Cambodia, the Institute of Technology in Cambodia and Norton University.

“GIPC, with $3.4 million of funding from USAID, is working to improve the productivity of the garment industry by delivering technical consulting and training services to factories,” it said, adding that the NUM had already run a pilot middle-management course with 19 students who graduated on May 9.